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Robert Bowyer (1758-1834) Artist, Publisher and Preacher

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Robert Bowyer (1758-1834) Artist, Publisher and Preacher Robert Bowyer (1758-1834) Artist, Publisher and Preacher OBERT BOWYER must be unique in the history of Baptists. As R officially-appointed miniature painter to King George III he often moved freely in the world of the Court and the fashionable; yet throughout all his adult life he retained an active membership of Baptist churches. Indeed in his later years he served as pastor to a small cause he had helped to begin. Certain features of his public life have been traced,l but the need for a fuller outline with due attention to his religious activities seems long overdue. Bowyer came originally from Portsmouth. 2 He had at least one brother, Amos, and two sisters, Susannah and another known later as Mrs. Leeks.s Unfortunately the only sources for the beginnings of his career as an artist are family and personal reminiscences. 4 The romantic version of these is that Bowyer was offered, whilst still a youth, an opportunity to migrate to America. His heart already belonged to one Mary Shoveller, also of Portsmouth, and Bowyer determined to offer her, as a keepsake, a self-portrait attempted with the aid of a looking-glass. A gentleman saw the result, pressed Bowyer to attempt the same for him, and Bowyer's. career was launched. Rather than go to America, he went to seek his fame in London. 5 The other more prosaic version was that Bowyer was already in London and began painting miniatures after observing some in a shop in Newgate Street. 6 All that appears certain is that Bowyer came from an unpromising background, and unlike many other fashion­ able artists of the day, his success was due largely to his own initiative and the skilful use of his native gift. Bowyer was a member of the Baptist Church at Meeting-House Alley, Portsmouth, whence he was dismissed to the Carter Lane Church, Southwark, on 10 March 1776.7 Mrs. Mary Bowyer (pre­ sumably the former Miss Shoveller) was also received· at Carter Lane in the October of the following year,a and the young couple set up home in Tower Street.D Their pastor was the youthful John Rippon . (1751-1836), destined to achieve fame not only as a distinguished pastor but as a hymnologist and editor of the Baptist Annual Register (1790~1802).lO Rippon and Bowyer became good friends, as will be shown, but Bowyer does not figure prominently in the records of the Carter Lane Church. In order to underline the distinction Bowyer brought to contempor­ ary Baptists, it is proposed first to trace his career as an artist and publisher before noting further details of his private and religious life. 32 ROBERT BOWYER 33 Bowyer achieved considerable prominence as a portrait minia­ turist. From about the middle of the eighteenth century the popularity and patronage of portrait miniature had greatly increased, and the number of miniaturists working at anyone time comes to be reckoned in scores.l1 Bowyer was not destined to be one of the greatest, such as Crossway, Crosse or Smart,12 but nevertheless was honoured and well-known by his contemporaries. He was supposed to have been a pupil of John Smart (1741-1811) who was reputed to be a pious member of the strict religious sect of Glassites, or Sandemanians,1B although one contemporary thought him vulgar, sensual, and greedy for money.14 The Royal Academy, founded by George III in 1768, sought to raise the status of painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, and architecture by giving tuition to students and arranging an annual exhibition. Between 1783 and 1828 Bowyer had thirty-two portraits exhibited at the Royal Academy,15 and in 1782 one at the exhibition of the Free Society of Artists.lo This kind of recognition meant that when Meyer died, Bowyer was in 1789 appointed miniature painter to the King.lT The manner of these appointments is uncertain, and was not necessarily expressive of the King's own choice. "Bowyer ! Who is Bowyer? He is no painter! I never heard of him," said the King on learning of his appointment.ls The King had pre­ ferred Richard Collins who in fact received much of his patronage. Bowyer did however make" an extraordinary miniature of George Ill, with a flat diamond over it half an inch square "19 and another portrait of him by Bowyer is reproduced as a plate for Hume's History of England which 'Bowyer published in 1797. Bowyer is also known to have painted portraits of George IV, and William IV.20 There is another story told that towards the end of George Ill's life, when he was closely confined because of his insanity, Bowyer sat in the Royal Chapel at Windsor and took a likeness of the King on his thumbnail. Then as quickly as possible afterwards he made a sketch and took it to the Prince Regent. The latter was supposed to have been so affected that he could not allow it to be published (it was such a remarkable likeness), and told Bowyer to name his own price. One version says this was fifty guineas,21 but this in another place became one hundred and five pounds. 22 The motives for the Regent's action are of course open to several interpretations. Bowyer received much fashionable patronage. His portrait. of Sir Edward Hughes "was described as a wonderful performance, and the Prince of Wales said it was one of the best miniatures he ever beheld."28 By the Queen's desire, Dr. Francis Willis, physician for treatment of insanity who attended George III from 1788 to 1807, sat to Bowyer for the portrait which Fittler engraved in 1789.24 Other subjects included the Dukes of Clarence and of York, Lord Sandwich, Earl Russell, Charles Fox the famous M.P., Lord Nelson, and four British Admirals. 25 Contemporary Dissenters painted by Bowyer included the BaptiSts John Rippon, Andrew Fuller, and 34 THE BAPTIST QUARTERLY Samuel Pearce26 as well as the eccentric Antinomian, William Huntington, ' S.S. ' (= ' Sinner Saved ').27 Unfortunately few original portraits by Bowyer have been traced. There is a miniature portrait of Warren Hastings in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch which is attributed to Bowyer.2a There was also a miniature of Nelson, attributed to Bowyer on the grounds that it was a reduction of a full-scale portrait in oils by Bowyer, once in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle but not now there.29 Modern experts are not as fulsome as Bowyer's contemporaries in their estimates of his work. G. C. Williamson in 1904 had found "three examples of his work at Christie's auction rooms which were cata­ logued as early works by Smart. They bear considerable resem­ blances, especially in the colour schemes, to the works of Smart, but are not nearly so well painted as regards the faces or hands. His work is looser and not so enamel-like as is the finest of Smart, and there is a yellowness in the faces which marks a striking divergence from his master."ao Similarly, Basil S. Long in 1929 described a miniature of Sir John Webb signed" R B / 1786" which was a copy of a miniature painted by Smart in 1784 and concluded, "it is not particularly good, but imitates with partial success the manner of Smart. The initials are finely written, like Smart's."81 More recently, one of Long's successors at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Mr. Graham Reynolds, wrote that Bowyer "hardly seems in the two or three works known to be by him to have deserved his high con­ temporary reputation."32 Deserved or not, of that "high contemporary reputation" there can be no doubt. His fame. as an artist was supplemented by his labours as a publisher of lavishly illustrated works. The high quality of English engravings in the late eighteenth century encouraged the publication of ornately illustrated editions of major works. BoydeU specialized in Shakespeare,38 Thomas· Macklin in the Poets and the Bible, whilst Bowyer turned his endeavours to historical pictures.34 His first undertaking was an extensive and expensive task. In 1792 . he issued a prospectus for a 'superbly embellished' edition of David Hume's History of England (first published in an unadorned edition, 1754-61). Bowyer had arranged with David Williams (1738-1816) to superintend the edition and write a continuation, but the letter's supposed Republican sympathies meant that the agreement had to be broken since the privilege of dedication to the Crown was likely to be withdrawn.85 Accordingly in 1793 Bowyer issued, An Elucidation of Mr. Bowyer's Plans for a magnificent edition of Hume's History of England with a Continuation by C. Gregory. (In fact, no con­ tinuation was ever published.) The aim of the illustrations was defined as being "to rouse the passions, to fire the mind with emulation of heroic deeds, or to inspire it with detestation of criminal actions." Bowyer commissioned leading artists, including Henry Tresham, Robert Smirke, John Opie,P. J. De Loutherbourg, and spared no expense in obtaining the finest engravings, many by Bartolozzi. By ROBERT BOWYER 35 1806 five parts in nine folio volwnes had been published, and the paintings had been exhibited in Bowyer's 'Historic Gallery' housed in Shomberg House in Pall Mall.86 Unfortunately a "series of unpropitious times and circumstances respecting the Fine Arts" (the country was at war) meant that the project was a financial failure and Bowyer suffered a severe 10ss.87 Following the example of John Boydell, Bowyer applied to Parliament for permission to dispose of his valuable collection of paintings, drawings, and engravings by means of a lottery.
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